


Trust is Under/Over rated

by angelan



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-11 23:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3336401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelan/pseuds/angelan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Titus, Jupiter is giving up on trusting people.  And it's going to stick.  Not like last time.  Or the time before that.  Or the time before that.  Or that.  Not like all the other times.  She's definitely done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust is Under/Over rated

Jupiter Jones is never trusting anyone again. This was it, the last time. No more. “Marry me and we’ll save the universe?” _”Marry me and we’ll save the universe?!?!”_ As if she’d never seen the Princess Bride. It was right up there with “have you told anyone else about this incriminating evidence?” and “Of course I’ll let you go if you just give me the Power Thing! Excuse me a second while I twirl my mustache.” 

“Five year olds are better judges of character than me.”

This must be why she always falls for the plot twist in every film (“no, Mama, it’s NOT obvious that Bruce Willis is dead, shut UP”), and why she had believed the cellphone guy when he said she could definitely afford the plan he sold her. And why she’d agreed to the stupid egg thing, to give Vladie the money. And why she’d dated…ugh. Better not to go there. That was a long, depressing list. 

“I’m a moron. I’m not qualified to own earth.” She sighs and looks out of the window. Well, it looks like a window. Windows on a spaceship probably aren’t smart. It’s probably a hologram or…whatever. She’d been working a lot of hours by senior year, which didn’t leave much room for homework. She’d had dreams of going to college once, one of her friends told her how much it cost. It had seemed mad, but maybe possible, maybe. And then she’d realized they meant ‘per semester’ and that seemed like a good reason to give up. She bought things that made her happy by inches, because even if she went without them she’d never save enough to go the mile. Her hand went automatically to her cellphone, probably the stupidest of things she’d ever bought (never trust a cellphone salesman (never trust anyone)). Now the screen was cracked, and it wouldn’t turn on. Either the battery was dead, or she now owned an expensive piece of plastic.

“Hi, AT & T. I’m Queen of Earth, can I have a new iPhone?”

There’s a gentle cough behind her. “You majesty can have anything she wishes.” Caine. He’s brought her food. He has his pardon, but he is still here, has still brought her food. Space food? What is food even like in space? The last thing she ate was dinner with an asshole (a meal she’d had before, never tasty) and she was too concentrated on terror to really eat anything. She’d also been slightly concerned that some of the things on the plate were decorative, and how would she even know? Shut up, Jupiter.

She takes the plate and he takes her cell. It looks tiny in his hands. “You’d be so bad at Candy Crush.” She says between mouthfuls, because she is an idiot.

“I preferred the angry birds.” He says offhandedly, brushing the cracks with his thumb.

She nearly drops the plate. “You…played…you have a cellphone?”

“It took time to search for you. And in the legion, before, we were trained to fit in on seeded planets; a protocol has been designed for all of them. The protocol for Earth has a section on these.” He taps her iPhone onto his knee and frowns. “It was extensive.”

“Yeah…I guess they’re pretty popular.” She pauses for a second. “Uh, this meat isn’t…people is it? I just mean…because-“

“It’s cricketgoat.” He says, as if that’s obvious. Clearly the protocols aren’t that great.

“Cricket…goat?”

“Your majesty does not care for it?” The bastard has puppy eyes. Puppy eyes and gravity boots and Your Majesty. Fuck. She tries to imagine the part where he lets her down, because that will make it easier to kill her problem…thing, but it’s too hard for her brain. He’s part dog, dogs don’t let you down, it’s just not in their nature.

“Uh…it’s actually great. Top quality. If I had my phone, I’d be instagramming it right now. Uh.” She pauses for a second, reaching for something that will dig her out of this conversational vortex. “Did you ever meet, uh, me. I mean her. You know. The other me.”

“The Queen? No. She’s been dead for two hundred years.” He pauses and half smiles at her quizzical look. “I’m not that old. They don’t let splices near that stuff.”

She’s strangely glad about that. It helps separate him from them. Makes her want to trust him though, and she’s not doing that anymore.

“You don’t know what she was like? I mean, if she’s like me? I guess you don’t get to ninety thousand by being as gullible as me, right? Unless she died because someone shouted ‘hey, look over there!’ and then pushed her off a cliff?” Oh my god. Why. Does she. Talk?

Caine coughs, and maybe he’s hiding a laugh, but it’s hard to tell. “That was…not the cause of death. Exactly.” 

He gets up and oh god, he actually takes her plate. No one has taken her plate for her in years. It’s always her job at home, and she feels weird in restaurants, like she ought to go to the kitchen and help with the dishes or something. 

“Thanks.”

He frowns at her, turns away, and she thinks maybe she’s trespassed on space manners (don’t thank people? Don’t thank people in food related situations?), but he’s just crossed the room to pick up the weird book thing, kind of like the one Stinger tried to show her. It’s different from the one she took from Kalique, and lost so she’s been ignoring it for fear it would end up like her iPhone.

 

“Just press the button and ask it anything you want to know. It speaks English. And Russian.”

“Hope it’s good at summarizing. Ninety thousand is a _lot_ of years. Thank you.”

He frowns again, and turns to leave. She promises herself she’ll look up space manners next. Maybe it has a section on conversational skills too. Probably she scrubbed a toilet while everyone in high school took that class. She’s about to dive into her predecessor’s life when she’s interrupted. He’s paused at the door.

“Your Majesty. I think it’s probably better to be the one who trusts too much than the one who betrays too much. Just an opinion.” 

He’s gone before she can reply. Fuck. There is definitely a flaw in her DNA. She’s trusting someone again. She can’t help it.

**Author's Note:**

> I...I like this film so much. Someone send help. Or failing help, send me space rollerblades.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] trust is under/over rated](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7877602) by [annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annapods/pseuds/annapods)




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